S4 E16: SME Challenges with Michael Denham
Canada’s small and medium-size enterprises (SMEs) face numerous challenges to scaling-up to compete on the world stage. There are ways to remove those barriers to financing and deepen capital markets. Michael Denham, National Bank of Canada’s Vice Chair of Commercial and Financial Markets, tells C.D. Howe Institute Podcast Host Michael Hainsworth that there are three key hurdles to overcome.
Ambler, Kronick – Time to Pause the Interest Rate Escalator
From: Steve Ambler and Jeremy M. Kronick To: Bank of Canada Governing Council Date: November 7, 2022 Re: Time to Pause the Interest Rate Escalator The Bank of Canada continued its tightening cycle last month with a 50-basis-point increase in its target for the overnight rate. A surprise to those expecting a 75-basis point increase, but still a hefty hike. It continues […] S4 E15: The Future of the Bank of Canada’s Balance Sheet
The Bank of Canada’s balance sheet has ballooned under COVID-19. The C.D. Howe Institute’s Jeremy Kronick and Steve Ambler join host Michael Hainsworth to discuss why, why it won’t be coming down any time soon, and what the implications are for monetary policy as interest rates skyrocket.
Bank of Canada should now pause rate hikes and reflect – Financial Post Op-Ed
The Bank of Canada continued its tightening cycle on Wednesday by announcing a 50-basis-point increase in its target for the overnight rate. That came as a surprise to those who expected a 75-basis point increase, but it’s still a hefty hike.
It continues the Bank’s front-loading of its rate increases, which is intended to reduce the scale of future rate hikes. In our view, this latest increase was needed – both to reduce the harm of further increases and to re-anchor inflation expectations – but now the time has come to pause and reflect.
Since the Bank’s September 7th rate boost, the consumer price index (CPI) numbers for August and September have been published. Headline inflation ticked…
Michael Bordo — History Unlearned Dogs the Federal Reserve’s Inflation Fight
This Memo is extracted from Michael Bordo’s address at the C.D. Howe Institute’s annual David Laidler lecture last month. To: Monetary Policy Observers From: Michael Bordo Date: October 31, 2022 Re: History Unlearned Dogs the Federal Reserve’s Inflation Fight Many of the monetary policy issues long thought resolved are back with a vengeance in 2022. And when one […] Miville Tremblay – Sustainable Finance and its Critics
To: Canadian ESG Observers From: Miville Tremblay Date: October 21, 2022 Re: Sustainable Finance and its Critics Sustainable finance is not green enough! No, it’s too woke! Worse, it’s a damn mess! Attacks abound on sustainable finance, which had grown to $3 trillion US in global mutual fund and ETF assets by the end of 2021. That number has […] Credit Unions Punch Above Their Weight With Canadian Smes
Source: CFIB December 2019 Research Snapshot. Credit unions in Canada play an important role in promoting financial services competitiveness. At the end of 2019, just before COVID-19, total credit union market share (assets/total financial institution assets) was 7.3 percent. While small relative to the big banks, credit unions punch above their weight in providing banking […] La crise de croissance de la finance durable – La Presse Op-Ed
La finance durable n’est pas assez verte ! Non, elle est trop woke ! Pire, un foutu bordel ! lancent les critiques. Elle vit plutôt une crise de croissance.
Les actifs mondiaux des fonds communs de placement et des FNB (fonds négocié en Bourse) en finance durable ont triplé durant la pandémie, pour atteindre 3000 milliards de dollars américains, fin 2021.1 Ils ont reculé depuis avec la correction des marchés, mais les flux restent positifs, malgré les dénonciations.
Les plus acerbes sont sorties de la bouche des gouverneurs de la Floride et du Texas, héraults de la droite dure et vaillants défenseurs du pétrole et des armes à feu.
Les tirs viennent aussi de la gauche, pour qui la…
Kronick, Robson – The Economic Perils of Federal Tax Hikes on Banks and Insurers
From: Jeremy M. Kronick and William B.P. Robson To: Minister of Finance Chrystia Freeland Date: October 4, 2022 Re: The Economic Perils of Federal Tax Hikes on Banks and Insurers Taxes are a necessary evil. Necessary, because we must fund government services. Evil, because they do damage beyond the cost to those who pay them – discouraging work […] Federal tax hikes on banks and insurers risk causing broader economic damage – Globe and Mail Op-Ed
Taxes are a necessary evil. Necessary, because we must fund government services. Evil, because they do damage beyond the cost to those who pay them – discouraging work and saving, misallocating where our scarce resources go, and encouraging underground activity. The federal government’s coming levies on banks and insurers – a corporate income surtax and the “Canada Recovery Dividend” – don’t even qualify as “necessary.”
These taxes were part of the Liberal campaign platform for last year’s federal election. The platform committed to raising the corporate income tax rate on bank and insurer profits above $1-billion from the 15 per cent other businesses pay to 18 per cent. It also proposed the Canada Recovery Dividend: a…
Pigeon, Fulton – Building Greater Resilience in Canada’s Big Credit Unions
To: Canadian Finance System Watchers From: Marc-André Pigeon and Murray Fulton Date: September 16, 2022 Re: Building Greater Resilience in Canada’s Big Credit Unions Even as the 2007-2009 financial crisis recedes from memory, financial sector policymakers continue to roll out a policy agenda built around what is believed to be a key cause of the financial crisis, namely […] How high should interest rates go and how fast? – Financial Post Op-Ed
The Bank of Canada continued its tightening cycle last week by announcing a 75-basis-point increase in its overnight rate target. That target is now above the top end of the Bank’s estimate of the “neutral rate” of two to three per cent. But how fast will the rate go from here?
The neutral rate is the rate the Bank thinks would be appropriate for an economy producing at full capacity, with inflation running at two percent. Most economists and market-watchers believe the overnight rate needs to go beyond neutral in order to fight inflation. Despite a one-month drop in the year-over-year increase in the CPI from 8.1 per cent in June to 7.6 per cent in July, inflation is a long way above the top end of the one-to-three per cent…